Parents who don't live together have joint custody (also called shared custody) when they share the decision-making responsibilities for, and/or physical control and custody of, their children. Joint custody can exist if the parents are divorced, separated, or no longer cohabiting, or even if they never lived together. Joint custody may be:
Continue Reading...A Pennsylvania court properly refused to exercise emergency jurisdiction over a Louisiana infant who according to her mother had been physically and sexually abused by her father, the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled June 21. The court, construing the UCCJA's emergency exception provision for the first time, looked to other states in concluding that such jurisdiction should be exercised only when the subject child is in immediate danger of suffering harm. Finding no such evidence here, it said that the Louisiana court in which the father filed for divorce should resolve the parents' custody dispute (O'Gwynn v. Herbert, Pa. Super. Ct., No. 2526 EDA 2004, 6/21/05).
For interstate custody issues regarding Arizona, contact NRG.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police cannot be sued for how they enforce restraining orders, ending a lawsuit by a Colorado woman who claimed police did not do enough to prevent her estranged husband from killing her three young daughters.
Neither the federal nor the Indiana wiretap law contains an exception for the surreptitious interception of one's spouse's communications, the Indiana Court of Appeals decided June 10. Addressing the issue for the first time, the court refused to follow the Fifth Circuit in inferring such an exception from the federal act's "extension phone exception." In rejecting the argument that a marital exception may be found in the Indiana statute, the court pointed out that it does not contain an "extension phone exception" from which a marital exception could be inferred (Dommer v. Dommer, Ind. Ct. App., No. 64A03-0409-CV-410, 6/10/05).
For more information regarding Arizona Divorce, contact NRG.
State laws limiting the institution of marriage to members of the opposite sex do not offend the due process and equal protection rights provided by New Jersey's Constitution, that state's Superior Court, Appellate Division, held June 14.
In rebuffing the claims of seven same-sex couples who had been denied marriage licenses on statutory grounds, the court stressed that the state's recently enacted Domestic Partnership Act confers substantial legal rights upon same-sex couples (while stopping short of recognizing their right to marry) (Lewis v. Harris, N.J. App. Div., No. A-2244-03T5, 6/14/05).
For similiar issues in Arizona, contact NRG.
Ted Nugent, '70s rocker and entrepreneur, reached a support agreement with the Dover woman he fathered a child with in 1995.
Nugent will pay $3,500 monthly in child support, and she will have sole custody of their son, now 10, under the agreement.
The child was born in April, 1995, after Gutowski and Nugent had a "brief relationship" related to Nugent's music, Gutowski's attorney has said. Gutowski sued Nugent for child support and legal custody in 2003.
Nugent acknowledged earlier in the case that he is the father and paid "minimal" support but has never met the boy.
One parent can have either sole legal custody or sole physical custody of a child. In most states, courts are moving away from awarding sole custody to one parent and toward enlarging the role a divorced father plays in his children's lives. Even where courts do award sole physical custody , the parties often still share joint legal custody, and the noncustodial parent enjoys a generous visitation schedule. In that situation, the parents would make joint decisions about the child's upbringing, but one parent would be deemed the primary physical caretaker, while the other parent would have visitation rights.
Continue Reading...SEATTLE -- A new study says states with tougher child support laws have fewer unwed births.
The study, which has not yet been published, shows that states with the most stringent laws and strictest enforcement have up to 20 percent fewer out-of-wedlock births.
For questions regarding Arizona paternity, contact NRG.
SEATTLE -- A new study says states with tougher child support laws have fewer unwed births.
The study, which has not yet been published, shows that states with the most stringent laws and strictest enforcement have up to 20 percent fewer out-of-wedlock births.
For questions regarding Arizona paternity, contact NRG.
Dismissal of plaintiff's section 1983 suit, alleging that defendant-social worker unlawfully seized her and demanded that she leave her mother's care, is reversed where defendant violated plaintiff's clearly established Fourth Amendment rights.
Click here for the opinion.
For information on Arizona child custody issues, contact NRG.
A former Cincinnati Bengal will spend five years on probation and must pay $425,000 in back child support.
That was the sentence handed down Thursday to James Francis.
Francis was arrested in Galveston, Texas, and extradited to Cincinnati to face two felony counts of non-payment of child support.
If Francis doesn't keep up with payments this time, he faces 11 months in jail.
Francis' attorneys argued he has a trust fund set up for the child, and was supposed to have his payments reduced after he retired from the NFL.
Jane Chen was a well-paid Wisconsin anesthesiologist. But at the age of 43, she decided to stay home with her three school-age children.
Even in 2005, Chen's decision was hardly unusual or remarkable: Women (and sometimes men) frequently forgo employment, even lucrative employment, in order to stay home with children.
What is remarkable and unusual, though, is that Chen's decision landed her in court. Her ex-husband argued that, by staying home, she was "shirking" her responsibility to provide financial support to their children. And he complained that due to her decision, a court was now ordering him to pay $4,000 more a month in child support.
Continue Reading...Physical custody means that a parent has the right to have a child live with him or her. Some states will award joint physical custody to both parents when the child spends significant amounts of time with both parents. Where the child lives primarily with one parent and has visitation with the other, generally the parent with whom the child primarily lives will have sole physical custody, with visitation to the other parent. Joint physical custody works best if parents live relatively near to each other, as it lessens the stress on children and allows them to maintain a somewhat normal routine.
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A child's physical location in a state for at least six consecutive months immediately before his or her parents engage in an interstate custody dispute is the key for determining home state jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act, the Texas Supreme Court held May 27 in Powell v. Stover, Tex., No. 03-1154. The court thus declined to adopt a test to determine where a child "lived" based on the parents' subjective intent.
To read the opinion, click here.
For Arizona UCCJEA issues, contact NRG.
Legal custody of a child means having the right and the obligation to make decisions about a child's upbringing. A parent with legal custody can make decisions about schooling, religion, and medical care, for example. In many states, courts regularly award joint legal custody, which means that the decision making is shared by both parents.
Continue Reading...RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Former NBA star Ralph Sampson pleaded not guilty Friday to federal charges of failing to pay court-ordered child support and is scheduled for trial Sept. 14.
Sampson entered his plea on the two felony counts. If convicted, he could face up to two years in prison and a $250,000 US fine.
For information regarding Arizona Child Support, contact NRG.
Alimony, also called spousal support, means paymenta by one spouse to another following a divorce. Courts don't always grant alimony, but where the marriage was long and one spouse earns a lot more than another, or one spouse left the workforce in order to raise children or manage the household, alimony is fairly common.
You must keep adequate records if you are paying or receiving alimony. This point cannot be over-emphasized. Frequently after a divorce, the spouses dispute, or the IRS challenges, the amounts that were actually paid or received. Without adequate documentation, the payer may lose the alimony tax deduction and/or be ordered to pay back support if the other spouse makes a claim in court.
Continue Reading...Divorce court erred in holding that a husband's parents had to supervise his overnight co-parenting time with his children, and that his wife would have sole decisionmaking authority as to them, due to his "penchant for pornography."
Husband, during the marriage, had communicated with a woman via e-mail and communications were of a sexual nature. He also placed a descriptive profile of himself on a computer web site designated SexyAds.Com, which listed his interests as a "discreet relationship" and "[c]asual sex," and stated that he sought "[w]omen" and "couples." Evidence further showed that he had visited web sites of a sexual nature for entertainment purposes.
Petty v. Petty, Tenn. Ct. App., No. E2004-01421-COA-R3-CV, 5/19/05
Hungary and Belgium recently deposited their instruments of ratification to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, which will enter into force for Hungary on Aug. 1 and for Belgium on Sep. 1.
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